The role of self-construal in resisting tobacco smoking

We interpreted depth interviews and personal observations of 29 Tongan and New Zealand European (NZE) women who self-identified as non-smokers to examine the role of self-construal in the creation and maintenance of their smoking-resistant identities. Our research offers substantive contributions to the smoking prevention literature because most prior work has been situated wholly within Western cultural contexts. We contribute methodologically by showing how a multicultural team-based approach can reap the advantages of interviewer–participant congruity whilst overcoming its limitations, thus paving the way for more fruitful qualitative research with minority groups. Our research also contributes theoretically to the self-construal literature by comparing the role of self-construal not just within the two groups but also across them. Our findings show that independent self-construal played a significant role in NZE women's resistance to smoking. However, for Tongan women, both independent and interdependent self-construals played important roles in their smoking resistance. Our findings both confirm and extend the current view that there are marked differences between collectivist and independent societies. We extend this view because our findings contradict the notion that Tongan women are likely to only use an interdependent self-concept when deciding to resist smoking, suggesting instead that Tongan women negotiate their self-construals in ways that allow them to employ the positives from both Tongan values and Western world views. We suggest that future appeals to Pacific women to resist smoking should draw on both traditional Pacific values and modern Western independence.

Chinese Abstract我们阐释了29名自我认定为非吸烟者的汤加和新西兰欧洲（NZE）女性的深度访谈和个人观察，以便从确立和维持其抵制吸烟身份等方面，考察自我构念的作用。我们的研究为吸烟预防方面的文献提供了实质性的贡献，因为大部分前期著作都是完全以西方的文化为背景。我们通过阐述研究员的定位如何影响少数群体的人种学，从方法论角度作出贡献，以取得与太平洋地区各国人群相关的更丰硕的研究成果。我们的研究不仅比较两组内的自我构念的作用，也比较了两组之间的自我构念的作用，从而从理论上为自我构念类文献作出贡献。我们的研究结果表明，独立的自我构念在NZE女性抵制吸烟方面起到重要的作用。但是，对于汤加女性抵制吸烟方面而言，独立的和相互依赖的自我构念同时发挥重要的作用。我们的研究结果确认并扩展了目前的观点（即集体社会和独立社会之间存在显著性差异）。我们扩展了这个观点，因为我们的研究结果与认为汤加妇女在决定抵制吸烟时可能只使用相互依存的自我概念这一见解相互矛盾，我们的研究结果反而提示了汤加女性同时利用汤加的价值观与西方的世界观中的积极因素，并以此方式来处理自我构念。我们认为，今后在呼吁太平洋女性抵制吸烟时，应借鉴传统的太平洋价值观和现代西方的独立性。